


round the corner.

by outpastthemoat



Series: new testament [just more of the same 'verse] [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Cas Whump, Future Fic, Hunter!Castiel, Hurt Castiel, M/M, Post-Purgatory, Post-Series, Schmoop, Singer Salvage, Sioux Falls, car crashes, hunter!dean, hunting things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He keeps turning to glance out the window every five minutes, hoping to see that familiar, slightly dented gray Nova.</p>
            </blockquote>





	round the corner.

 

  
_Now I know it’s getting late_  
 _It’s Friday night and the crowds are starting to fade away_  
 _And I know I shouldn’t be here waiting on her_  
 _But I keep thinking any second she’ll be coming ‘round the corner_

Dean swallows a mouthful of coffee and almost sputters it all back in the cup.  It’s bitter and heavy and pitch-black as a demon’s eyes, which is just the way Cas likes it but Dean prefers his coffee to taste a little less like coffee and lot more like slightly soggy sugar, thank you very much, and where the hell  _is_  Cas, anyway?  

He’s been waiting for Cas’s Nova to pull up in the parking lot, the engine almost stalling when Cas puts it in park, the way it’s been stalling for weeks because Cas hasn’t been home long enough to have time to fix it.  Dean’s been waiting for Cas through the classic diner special that’s anything but, plus pie for desert and now a cup of what might officially be the world’s worst coffee but at least holding the cup close by his mouth keeps Dean from being booted out of his booth.  

He keeps turning to glance out the window every five minutes, hoping to see that familiar, slightly dented gray Nova.  

Any minute now, Cas will be walking through the door, forgetting to take off his sunglasses accidentally-on-purpose the way he always does when he steps inside a room, sliding into the booth across from Dean and reaching over to take the fries Dean didn’t eat only because he likes fries better when they’re stolen off his plate by the fallen angel still wearing Dean’s old navy jacket despite the fact that there’s a ragged hole where the left-hand pocket used to be.  

Dean’s grown to hate the days he and Cas split up to work different cases, criss-crossing the western half of the continental United States in separate cars, only seeing Cas whenever their paths intersect, arranging to meet him in diners or bars for a quick bite of dinner while comparing case notes on what’s started to feel rather alarmingly like  _dates_.

Like last week, how Dean had walked into a roadhouse to find Cas sitting at the bar, people-watching and saving the seat beside him.  

Cas had leaned over towards Dean until their heads almost touched, saying,  _I appreciate the atmosphere_  in a confidential tone before passing Dean a bowl of peanuts filled mostly with empty shells, and for some obscure reason Dean had wished he’d remembered to pick up flowers.

These days, Dean spends a lot of time wondering when his hunting partnership with a former warrior of heaven had turned into a long-distance relationship with frequent domestic interludes.   

Like how a fortnight ago, he’d met Cas at a motel somewhere outside of Cheyenne.  They’d spent the evening at the nearby laundromat, washing loads of flannel and denim, and Dean had been oddly content, just watching Cas scrub blood out of his jacket at the sink.  

And it felt just like normal, spending the night dozing on the double next to Cas’s, listening for Cas’s light snores just the way he does when they’re at Bobby’s house, asleep on mattresses on the library floor.

Dean wipes his face with a napkin and throws it on the plate.  It’s almost two-thirty and Cas still isn’t here, and since they were supposed to meet at one it probably means that Cas isn’t coming, so Dean leaves a twenty to cover food and a tip and lets the diner door slam behind him on his way out.  

Cas doesn't make it to lunch the next day, either, and that's the reason Dean leaves his burger uneaten on the plate, jumps back inside the Impala and heads toward Sioux Falls.  He doesn't dare try calling Cas, partly because there's nothing worse than getting an impromptu call when you're staking out a nest of vamps or running from witches, partly because he's half-terrified that it'll go straight to voice mail, and he's in Sioux Falls by seven that night.

Cas’s Nova isn’t parked in the driveway.

Dean leans over the steering wheel, feeling sick inside; lets his head rest on the dash until he finally works up the courage to try Cas's phone.

His number goes directly to voice mail, and that’s what makes Dean’s stomach start turning churning, because Cas is out there, somewhere, facing something,  _rugarus wendigos spectres_  and Dean doesn’t know where he is. 

Cas is meticulous about answering calls; he’s been that way since the first time Dean had tried to call out to him after he’d fallen and finally realized, a heart-stopping, panic-filled twelve minutes later, that Cas couldn’t hear his prayers anymore.

That was the day Dean had come home from the Verizon store with a new line added to his account and a supposedly indestructible phone in a bag that he’d handed to Cas with the blunt order  _you will answer this phone when I call or so help me God_ , and had only been slightly placated by the way Cas had taken this rather vague threat with complete seriousness.  

He leaves the car door open as he heads for the house, fumbling with his cell phone and thanking whatever unknown force of the universe that had inspired him to put Sam’s number on speed dial.

“Hey, is this urgent?” Sam’s voice greets him.  “I’d sort of like to keep this consult short, ‘cause Amelia’s made dinner and it actually looks kind of good for once-”

Dean cuts him off remorselessly; he’ll never get over the idea of Librarian Sam, keeper of all knowledge concerning the arcane and the occult, who works out of his bookshelf-lined basement and charges for his research skills by the hour.  “Sam, has Cas called you today?”

Sam sucks in a quick breath.  “No, not since the evening before last.  He wanted to know if I had the book with the lore about- ”

“Shit,” Dean says, not listening to the rest of Sam’s words,  _shit shit shit._   

Dean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.  Okay, Cas’s cell phone might be busted ( _the reviews said it was indestructible but maybe not against ghosts_ )  or the battery might be dead  ( _he always keeps it charged but  maybe a poltergeist could drain the power_ ) or maybe it fell into an open grave and was subsequently salted and burned and reburied ( _hey it’s happened before_ ).  

“I’m sure he’s okay, man,” Sam says, but he sounds uncertain, and after a long moment that Dean spends taking shallow breaths and trying not to hyperventilate he asks, “You don’t think he’s in trouble, do you?”

Dean wants to hurl the goddamned phone across the room and watch it smack into the walls of the library, so recently covered with fresh wallpaper.  He wants to tell Sam,  _You don’t understand, I can’t lose him, he’ll  go away and I won’t have anyone to blame but myself_ , but that’s not the kind of thing he’s ever been able to tell Sam and  _damnit_ , his phone is blinking and there's Sheriff Mills on the other line.

“Dean?” Jody says. There’s a catch in her voice, and Dean's heart sinks.

"Dean, I need you to be calm," she says, and Dean takes a moment to wonder when it was that Jody had gotten to know him so well. "But this is about Cas. He's been in a car accident."

Dean watches the walls fall away, observing with detached calm that his hands are shaking madly. He thinks he's going to throw up, he's going to bend over and be sick all over the newly-refinished hardwood floors because Jody's about to tell him Cas is dead.

Cas is dead, he thinks as the walls spin around him, and somewhere in the back of his mind comes the thought that Cas can't possibly be dead, because from the look of the kitchen, it's clear Cas never finished washing the dishes and it was his turn.

"I need you to come to the hospital," Jody says, and Dean wonders vaguely what sort of condition Cas's body might be in, if they need Dean to identify him.  Lots of blood, he supposes, limbs ripped off, his face slashed and mutilated, and he's so lost in this trail of thought he almost misses what Jody says next.  

"He needs a ride home," Jody tells him, and for a moment Dean's lost in the details of transporting Cas's body back to Singer Salvage, and wondering frantically if Sam can make it up here before Dean has to burn Cas's body.  

Jody says, "He's broken his collarbone, couple of ribs, and his right foot, so there's no way I'm letting him drive himself home," and Dean almost passes out on the floor right then and there because Cas isn't actually dead.

He manages to say, "Sure, Jody, I'll be right there," and frantically presses the end-call button.  

He stands in the kitchen for one long minute, eyes closed, just breathing, before he realizes Sam's still on hold.

"Sam," he says, gasping out a string of nonsense that involves the words  _Jody-hospital-Cas_.

But Sam seems to understand.  "Is he all right?" he asks worriedly, and it hits Dean in a moment of terrifying clarity that Cas isn’t all right, he can’t possibly be all right, because he’s human now, and car crashes are the kind of thing that can kill humans.  

Somehow he remembers to lock the front door behind him, somehow he manages the drive to Sioux Falls General Hospital despite the damp, cloudy fog blurring his vision.  Somehow he makes it inside and there's Jody, waiting for him in the emergency room, and oh God, there’s Cas, bandaged but alive, waiting patiently for Dean to take him home.

Dean manages a smile. "Hey, buddy," he says, kneeling on the floor in front of Cas. "What happened?"

Cas looks down at him, frowning.  "I got hit by a car," he says with careful precision, like he's not sure how to make the situation any clearer but he's willing to try, for Dean's sake.

A laugh forces its way out of his chest, despite everything.  Only Cas.  "Yeah, I know that," Dean says tiredly.  

"You okay?" he asks, because though Cas looks composed as always, he’s shaking, sudden shudders that flicker across his skin that he can’t seem to control.  His hands tremble minutely, and Cas holds one up to Dean's face as though for closer inspection, explaining with detached calm, “It doesn’t seem to  _stop_.”

"Yeah, well, you had a pretty close call there, man," Dean says, and places his hand on Cas's shoulder.

Cas doesn't liked to be touched much; he only ever tolerates Dean’s touch, and only on occasion.  But now he leans his head against Dean’s shoulder and says stiffly, “Dean, I think I’d like a hug.”  

Because only Cas could turn a request for comfort into an awkward situation, and Dean reflects somewhere in the back of his mind that despite falling, against all odds and despite everything else, Cas hasn’t changed.  Not the best parts of him, anyway.

That thought makes Dean smile lopsidedly, and he carefully wraps his arms around Cas’s shoulders and lets Cas bury his face in the crook of his neck, mindful of those broken ribs.  This close, Dean can smell aftershave and shampoo and fabric softener underneath the oily, clinging scent of engine smoke and burning metal.

And if he happens to rest his face against Cas's head and presses the slightest of kisses against all that dark hair, well, Cas lets him do it without protest.

"Hey," he says against Cas's cheek, "You stood me up for lunch yesterday. You owe me a burger," he says, and he can feel Cas's slight smile.  

"All right, Dean," Cas says gravely.  "Next time, it'll be my treat."

"Good," says Dean, and closes his eyes.  "It's a date."


End file.
